As he passed the tanks in hydroponics, he checked fluid levels, pumps and chemical balance from habit. The computer cared for it, of course, but the plants were vital to their existence. Besides handling the air, they manufactured pharmaceuticals, cleaned the water, provided fresh food, and anchored the Atonement’s tiny ecosystem.
He tapped his fingers against a vat of brine shrimp swirling about under their own lights. When Grant erased himself from the computer, he made himself a nonentity. It wouldn’t track him. It ignored his med signals. There was no way for the computer to directly recognize him, but maybe there was an indirect way.
Redmond sat on the floor between the shelter of two tanks so that he could see the doors. He called up the ventilation readouts. If Grant breathed in one room long enough, Redmond might be able to find him.
It took him a while to get the computer to display the readouts the way he wanted. He looked for oxygen demand. Air circulated in all the rooms, but the computer adjusted for need. Finally, a tiny difference in one segment of the C corridor showed up. Something produced carbon dioxide there. Redmond checked the vid for that segment. Nothing visible, but Grant could be in the blind spot beneath it. Still, the computer showed secured airlocks, so Redmond’s plan must have surprised Grant as he rushed from the north end to the south. The doors would have flashed a stay-clear, then closed. Grant wouldn’t have been able to stop them.
Maybe the thing to do would be to go back to the sleeproom, climb into his pod, and resume the long sleep. When the next crew woke, they’d find Grant’s remains. Redmond could manipulate the computers to show anything he wanted. He scratched his chin. That was Grant kind of thinking.
He shook his head. No, he had to end it now. Leave the computer records intact. They’d show that Grant had started it. Redmond had acted in self defense. When they reviewed the records, they would know.
How long had Grant been trapped? He was clever, and he knew the ship intimately. Was there a way out of the passage other than the airlocks? Was there anything in it that could be used as a weapon? The computer showed that segment’s emergency locker’s manifest: food, water, some tools. No obvious deadly weapons. But Redmond would have to be careful. He would take all precautions. Grant was malicious in his intellect. He was three minutes older, but it was three minutes of planning, three minutes to get a head start on his brother emerging a shade later.
Leaving hydoponics behind, Redmond moved into the corridor.
At each airlock, he rechecked the vids and oxygen uptakes; Grant wasn’t moving. The next segment looked empty, and the tiny warning light above the airlock glowed yellow, meaning there was pressure beyond, then flashed to green when he activated the door. After the ten second cycling sequence, the twinned, massive, metal doors swung open to reveal another long section of empty corridor. A second maintenance bot scuttled out of sight in front of him, disappearing with a creepy squeak. Redmond squatted at the bot’s tunnel entrance. It wasn’t very big, but a determined man might squeeze into it, and once in he could feasibly bypass the blocked corridors. Of course, he’d have to get through the safety features in the tunnels too—they had their own airlocks—but he could do that without tripping the alarms Redmond had set up.
A few minutes search revealed no tampering within the maintenance tunnels. There weren’t vids in them though. Still crouched by the entrance, Redmond chewed his lip. The closer he got to the segment with the elevated carbon dioxide, the more nervous he became. Catching Grant in between doors was too easy. In fact, this was Grant’s style, to let Redmond think he was winning until the end.
Something rattled beneath his hand. He threw himself backwards, slamming a shoulder into the wall in the process. Flat on the floor. Gun ready. Breathing in gasps through his mouth. He laughed in relief when the bot reemerged from the tunnel. It rolled on its hidden wheels to the corridor’s middle, twirled until it faced him, its tiny vid eyes unblinkingly aimed. Redmond’s laugh died in his throat. When the crew was awake and they all busied themselves with their two week regimen, the bots almost never came out. He could ignore them, but now he realized he was awake during bot time.
The machine pirouetted, then rolled down the corridor back the way Redmond had come. He laid his head on the deck, weak with relief.
He pushed himself off the floor. Another few minutes, and he would have him. Redmond licked his lips. The long feud would be over. Dimly he considered again how he’d explain this to the rest of the crew. He didn’t worry about punishment. Grant was the dangerous one, the diabolical one. Grant had broken protocol by emerging from the pod too soon. Grant had reprogrammed the computer to hide himself; that would show his intent. Surely the crew would understand. Now that he was this close, Redmond almost felt sorry for him. A great career wrecked by unchecked passion.
He reached the second to last airlock. Trembling, he rechecked his gun. Tranquilizer dart ready. Safety off.
As he pressed the button, he glanced up. The status light above the door was out. Time slowed. Not out. A piece of tape covered it, one edge curling. He didn’t have to pull it off to know the light glowed red. There was no air in the chamber beyond. Time nearly stopped; he turned, ran, each stride taking minutes to finish, the door at the other end impossibly far away. He thought, how long do I have to cover fifty feet? Did I take two seconds to start running, or five? How thoroughly did Grant subvert the computer? Enough to lure him down the corridor. Enough to hide the vacuum in that segment. Enough to create a subtle bait in an elevated carbon dioxide count in the chamber.
A klaxon screamed an alert. Two steps from the airlock, one step. He was through. Hit the button to close the door, which started its lumberous trip. Grabbed an access panel handle. How many seconds?
Wind, then a roar, tearing at him, sucking him back. Feet off the floor. Mouth open to equalize the pressure.
Very slow time. Hours in his head until the door closed behind him. Blood flowing from one ear, trickling into the corner of his mouth. Air cascading through the vents to replace the loss. Emergency lights pulsing in the ceiling. More klaxons, a virtual chorus shouting around him.
Then time caught up. Redmond let go of the handle, slid to the floor. Told the computer to shut down the alarms. He couldn’t move his left arm. Carefully he felt his shoulder; it wasn’t shaped right, a dislocation.
Grant hadn’t been in the segment at all. It was a trap.
On Redmond’s visor, numbers and reports scrolled past, the ship reacting to the segment’s emergency. Attitude jets fired, nudging the Atonement back on course. External repair bots activated and rushed to seal whatever hole Grant had created. How Grant had fooled the computer into ignoring the damage at first was a puzzle. Redmond flicked from system to system. Nearly every part of the ship responded to the damage. Medcentral kicked into high alert, poised to warm a crew if needed. Every bot on board looked to be on the move. He couldn’t track the commands being issued, and through the blizzard of numbers, he searched for Grant. It all came down to Grant who hated Redmond so much he’d risked the integrity of the entire ship to get him. How could he know that blowing that segment wouldn’t have collapsed the entire corridor? Every door behind Redmond had been open. If he hadn’t closed the airlock that saved his life, half the Atonement could have explosively decompressed. This was beyond any feud.